New Unemployment Numbers

The latest unemployment figures for Mississippi have been released. The numbers for June were up a bit. According to Nellie Satcher, who is the director for the WIN Job Center in Meridian, the results were not a surprise.

"They happen to go up every year around this time because it's the term between May and June when kids are let out from school and college and so therefore they're out looking for summer work as well, and so that is added into the numbers. So, that's when our rates go up a little and that's across the state."

The highest unemployment rate for last month in Mississippi was in Clay County, which was recently chosen as the site for a new tire manufacturing plant. The unemployment rate there for June was 20.1%. The lowest rate was in Rankin County at 5.5%. Meanwhile, in East Mississippi the highest rate was in Kemper County at 15.2% and the lowest was in Neshoba County at 7.4%.

As for other counties in East Mississippi the unemployment rates for June were as follows: Lauderdale County: 9.9%Newton County: 9.1% Clarke County: 11.7%Jasper County: 11.1%Winston County: 13.0%Scott County: 7.5%Jasper County: 11.1%Smith County: 9.1%

The highest unemployment rate in Northeast Mississippi for the month of June was in Noxubee County at 16.7%.

Meanwhile, because of sequester cuts out of Washington the local WIN Job Office is not accepting individual training applications until November.

"We do look forward to opening that back up pretty soon, but right now we're just not," says Satcher. "We're at the end of our fiscal year. So, there are a lot of things that we're trying to clear up and fix up."

As construction continues at the coal plant site in Kemper County, Satcher says companies that are doing the work are continuing to supply a lot of local jobs.

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